This invention relates to the field of portable spray painting equipment, more particularly to a spray gun assembly having a pivotable syphon tube unit.
A common construction of a spray gun assembly employs a spray gun, a paint cup, a lid and a syphon tube. The syphon tube is routed through the center of the lid with an intake end located inside the paint cup. The syphon tube is rigid and has a bend in it so that the tube's intake end draws liquid from a lowermost region adjacent a sidewall of the paint cup. This construction requires that the assembly be held in a somewhat upright position so as to keep the intake end immersed in the liquid as the liquid level drops. If the prior art assembly is tilted too far from an upright position, or if the assembly is pointed in an improper direction, the assembly will fail to operate due to the intake end drawing air instead of liquid. This problem is especially evident when the assembly is used to paint an overhead surface, such as the upper portion of a wall or ceiling, where the assembly must be tilted backwards, and immediately thereafter painting a lower portion of the wall or floor where the assembly must be tilted forwards.
In these prior art devices, the intake end of the syphon tube was in a fixed angular position relative to the nozzle of the spray gun. This forced users either to refill the paint cup prematurely in order to assure that the intake end would stay submerged in the liquid when the assembly was tilted to a desired position, or to disassemble the assembly and reposition the intake end. This typically entailed locating a wrench, loosening the nut holding the syphon tube in place, taking the lid off the paint cup, grabbing the syphon tube (which may be covered with paint), turning the syphon tube so that the intake end points in a different direction, placing and securing the lid back on the paint cup, and tightening the nut so that the syphon tube is once again held rigidly in place.
Accordingly, a need exists for a simple device which is effective for changing the angular position of the intake end of the syphon tube within the paint cup relative to the direction that the spray gun is pointing without opening, loosening or disassembly of the spray gun assembly.